Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: 149th ordinary period of sessions.

28 October 2013

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, Access, ARTICLE 19 - Mexico and Central America office, ARTIGO 19 - Brasil, Asociación para el Progreso de las Comunicaciones, APC, Asociación para una Ciudadanía Participativa, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, Center for Technology and Society at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Colectivo Contingente MX, Comisión Colombiana de Juristas, DATA, DeJusticia, Derechos Digitales, Fundación Karisma, Fundación para La Libertad de Prensa, Instituto DEMOS, Open Media, ONG Hiperderecho, Privacy International, Propuesta Cívica, Rio Institute for Technology & Society, TEDIC and the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinicprovide this submission in support of the position advanced by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that the mass surveillance programs of the United States NSA violate fundamental human rights of both U.S. and non-U.S. persons (a term employed by the United States to describe any individual not a citizen of the United States or a lawful permanent resident).

The primary objective of our submission is to explain how certain recently-admitted aspects of the NSA's programs impact the rights of non-U.S. persons, and to this end, will include a description of how the programs operate and how the U.S. legal system fails to protect this class of person. We will also describe some of the current efforts underway internationally to articulate how human rights laws, including specifically, the rights to free expression, privacy and association should be interpreted in this age of mass surveillance capabilities, including the technical ability to analyze communications and communications metadata in ways that have profound impacts on these rights. We hope this analysis will assist the Commission in its consideration of these issues during this hearing and in defining the perameters of a future in-depth investigation into the U.S. mass surveillance programs and their impacts on human rights in the Americas.

In our conclusion, we made clear that mass surveillance programs of the United States NSA violate fundamental human rights of non-U.S. persons.We hope that the mass surveillance activities of the United States will be condemned in the strongest terms, reaffirming the above human rights principles, established by international human rights law.

Pages

This page collects pleadings and other information from the multi-district litigation that apply to all of the cases or that are not otherwise included in the specific case pages for the multi-district litigation arising from the warrantless wiretapping.

These cases, handled by the courts along with Hepting v. AT&T, included a consolidated class action complaint on behalf of customers against various Verizon and MCI entities, alleging wholesale dragnet surveillance.

These six cases were brought by the federal government against various state administrators to terminate subpoenas seeking information from the telecoms about whether they violated state privacy laws as part of the the warrantless surveillance.

In Hepting v. AT&T, EFF sued the telecommunications giant on behalf of its customers for violating privacy law by collaborating with the NSA in the massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications.

Larry Klayman, conservative activist and founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, was among the first plaintiffs to sue the National Security Agency (NSA) over the collection of telephone metadata from Verizon customers that was detailed in documents released by Edward Snowden.

In Smith, EFF, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, have joined the legal team for Anna Smith, an Idaho emergency neonatal nurse, in her challenge of the government's bulk collection of the telephone records of millions of

In June 2013, The Guardian published a classified document leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden detailing how the NSA is vacuuming up call data from the Verizon phone network under the auspices of Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

Twenty-two organizations including Unitarian church groups, gun ownership advocates, and a broad coalition of membership and political advocacy organizations filed suit against the National Security Agency for violating their First Amendment right of association by illegally collecting their call